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Appeals Court Allows Abortion Pill to Remain Available with Restrictions; Friend Says Pentagon Docs Leaker Worked at Military Base; Feinstein Asks to Be Temporarily Replaced on Judiciary Amid Health Issues; Jury Selection to Begin as Judge Sanctions FOX for Withholding Evidence; Trump in New York to Be Deposed in A.G.'S Fraud Lawsuit; Historic Flooding in Broward County. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 13, 2023 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[06:00:10]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thanks for joining me. I'm Christine Romans this Thursday morning. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. We're so glad you're here.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: This "Washington Post" story is unreal. I thought I felt I was reading it. It felt like a movie script, like a screenplay.

HARLOW: Incredible reporting. We're going to tell you all about it, if you're just waking up with us this morning.

LEMON: Yes.

HARLOW: Because this is about those leaked documents.

LEMON: Yes.

HARLOW: And who it was online that leaked them.

LEMON: Yes. A young person.

HARLOW: Named O.G.

LEMON: O.G. It's O.G. And then there's a teenager involved, and it involves like a social media gaming site.

HARLOW: It's a lot, a lot.

LEMON: You want to stick around for this.

HARLOW: And critical for national security, so we'll get into that. We're glad you're with us. Kaitlan's on assignment, so let's start with the five things to know for this very busy Thursday, April the 13th. A federal appeals court partially blocking a Texas judge's ruling on the abortion pill, mifepristone. It means the FDA's approval of that drug still stands for now, but other limitations have been put in place. More than that in a moment.

LEMON: It's a complicated story. But we're going to break it down for you.

And this, we were just talking about. We're getting our first clues about who has been leaking U.S. government secrets. "The Washington Post" reporting that he is a young man who was trying to impress his friends online. His friend calls him O.G., and he says he worked on a military base.

HARLOW: Wow.

LEMON: We're going to explain.

And a 50-year flood event striking Fort Lauderdale. Record amounts of rainfall in just a few hours. The airport expected to be shut down until at least noon today.

We have a mutual friend who's there -- we'll talk about it -- who is stuck --

HARLOW: OK.

LEMON -- there in the middle of these floods. Yes.

HARLOW: We will talk about that.

Also, Senator Dianne Feinstein has asked to be temporarily removed from the Senate Judiciary Committee. She has faced pressure from some, even in our own party, to resign from the Senate because of her absence due to shingles, and that's been delaying efforts to confirm key judges.

Also later today, jury selection will begin in the Dominion defamation suit against FOX News. That judge has already sanctioned FOX for withholding evidence.

CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

LEMON: Take a deep breath. It's a lot.

HARLOW: Yes.

LEMON: Any one of these stories we could have led with.

HARLOW: That's -- where I was thinking this morning: which one are we going to lead with? Huge. We'll get to the leak in a moment, but a huge development overnight for women across this country, right, in this legal battle over the widely-used abortion pill mifepristone.

An appeals court has ruled that it will remain available for now, but that court also did impose some temporary restrictions on how you can get it. Women won't be allowed to get the medication delivered in the mail -- That's a huge deal in some states.

This all comes as the Justice Department fights a federal judge's ruling in Texas. He abruptly suspended the pill's FDA approval last week after it had been on the market and available to women for 23 years.

So let's start with our Supreme Court reporter Ariana de Vogue.

This is fascinating. It's sort of split down the middle, kind of partial temporary freeze. Where does this leave women across the country this morning?

ARIANA DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT CORRESPONDENT: Right. The appeals court gave a partial win to the Biden administration in this ruling that came out late last night. It agreed for now to freeze -- to allow the government approval of that key drug to stay in place. That maintains the drug on the market for now.

However, it did make some cutbacks, cutbacks on what the FDA has done in recent years to make it easier to obtain this drug. And hear what some of the cutbacks are: finding it could be distributed by mail, as you said; it could be dispensed later in pregnancy; it could be administered by non-doctors.

So this court still -- it gives a victory to the Biden ministrations in right now, in the early parts of this case. However, it is still expressing some skepticism about the safety of this drug.

So the challengers, they now are going to consider whether or not to go to the Supreme Court.

HARLOW: Do you think they will?

DE VOGUE: So I don't know. The Biden administration and the manufacturers now, they could. They could decide at this early phase to go to the Supreme Court and to make this appeal.

Or they could sit back for now, because this appeals court has put this on a really expedited timeframe. So they could wait, not appeal to the Supreme Court, and this now will continue in the lower courts.

[06:05:02]

But it was an important partial win for the Biden administration. This appeals court really cutting back a little bit on what that broad ruling from last week was.

HARLOW: As far as you would expect it if DOJ does prevail in the appeals court fully. Then it would be appealed higher by the petitioner. So we'll see where it goes.

DE VOGUE: Yes.

HARLOW: Arianna, thank you very much.

LEMON: We'll continue to check in on that. Also, this. It looks like "The Washington Post" might be zeroing in on

the person who leaked the top-secret Pentagon documents on social media.

"The Post" spoke to one of the alleged leaker's online -- online friends. And he says the leaker posted hundreds of pages of photos of classified U.S. intelligence in private group -- in a private group on Discord. It is a platform that's popular with video gamers.

Now, the friend says that the user, who is known as O.G., indicated that he brought the documents home from his job on a military base. O.G. claimed that he spent some of his day inside a secure facility that prohibited cell phones and other electronic devices that could be used to still secret information.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was first made aware of these documents, I want to say, about 6 to 8 months ago. I was in a Discord server by the name of Doug Shaker Central. And in this channel, there was classified documents being posted by a user who I'll refer to as O.G. from this point.

The documents were often listed as Ukraine versus Russia at first. However, it slowly spiraled into just intelligence about everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So "The Post" is reporting that O.G. took hundreds of photos of the actual documents and shared them with the group, including detailed charts of the battlefield in Ukraine and highly-classified satellite images.

National security reporter Natasha Bertrand is at the Pentagon with more.

Natasha, this is an unbelievable story to read. He had been posting them for a while. The folks there didn't believe, you know, that it was actually real. And the friend says that there were Russian users in this online group.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Don, this is really remarkable reporting here.

So what we are learning is that the alleged leaker of these documents was someone who works at a military base, according to this friend who was on this server with him, and had been posting documents for months and months in this group chat that did include foreign nationals, including, according to this friend, Russians and Ukrainians, as well as other people who said that they were from Eastern Europe.

Now it is not clear at this point, of course, who this leaker actually is. He is only being referred to as O.G., and the friend has refused to identify him at this point, because they say they are -- they are aware that the FBI is undergoing a very intense leak hunt for this person. But they know where -- they know his real name. They know where he

lives, they say. And they know that he works on a military base where he can have access to all of these documents.

But look, in terms of what this group actually was and what kind of bound them together, it appears that they all had a love of, according to this friend here, of God, the military, guns.

Here is part of what he had to tell "The Washington Post."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a -- he was a young, charismatic man who loved nature, God, who loved shooting guns and -- and racing cars. He did see himself as the leader of this group, and he -- ultimately, he was the leader of this group. And he wanted us all to be sort of super-soldiers to some degree, informed, fit, with God, well-armed, stuff like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERTRAND: So originally, according to "The Post," O.G., the leaker, alleged leaker, was actually hand transcribing these classified documents that he was bringing home from his work every day.

Ultimately, that became too tedious, according to this friend, and he actually just started taking photos of the documents themselves and posting on -- posting them online. And those are the documents that CNN and other outlets have been reporting on for the last week or so.

That has spurred a massive investigation across the federal government for this alleged leaker, Don.

LEMON: Natasha, let's talk about his intentions here. Just to keep his friends informed? He wanted them to be informed about what the government was doing.

BERTRAND: According to his friend, who was on this chat with him, it appears that he was motivated by a very dark view of the government. He was not necessarily motivated by, for example, you know, being in favor of Russia or being in favor of Ukraine. He was motivated, instead, largely by conspiracy theories, and he had a very dark view of the intelligence community and the military, writ large.

And he wanted to show his friends kind of where taxpayer dollars were going in terms of the intelligence community; what the military was doing. And of course, the kind of support that the U.S. has been providing to Ukraine. He wanted to keep this group up to date on current events.

And one of the friends did say that they were always impressed by how ahead of the news he seemed to be.

So obviously this is going to provide a lot of fodder for law enforcement and, of course, the Pentagon who have been turning over every stone to find this guy, Don. LEMON: Yes. And it's just the beginning of figuring out who he is. Thank you, Natasha Bertrand, joining us from Washington this morning.

[06:10:02]

HARLOW: Just stunning reporting.

Also this morning, Senator Dianne Feinstein is seeking and asking Chuck Schumer to temporarily replace her on the Judiciary Committee after facing pressure from some within her own party to resign completely from the Senate.

This is because of a lengthy absence she has had some health issues.

On Wednesday, Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California, Democrat Dean Phillips of Minnesota both urged her to step down.

Lauren Fox joins us from Capitol Hill. I believe, Lauren, one of the words Congressman Phillips used was sort of like "dereliction" at this point, to just like, leave this open, because you need her to confirm all these judges.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, it's an important reminder that the Senate Judiciary Committee is narrowly divided. And with an absence like Senator Feinstein's going on for more than a month now that committee is starting to get into a backlog of some of those lower court judges. The Democrats view as really essential to continuing the Biden ministrations legacy in the court.

So what she's asking for what she released last night in a statement is that Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, temporarily replace her on that committee with another member.

Remember, she serves on other committees, as well. But this committee really essential, because of the belief that, if she's not on the Judiciary Committee, if they can't vote out those judges, you really start to get into a backlog situation.

So a very significant ask from Feinstein. And Chuck Schumer announced in a statement last night that he is going to respect her wishes. And next week, we'll try to move to replace her on that committee temporarily.

Here's where it gets tricky, Poppy. As of this morning, we still don't know whether Republicans would agree to let Democrats do this easily or whether they're going to put up a fight.

Normally, when you're member that you get named to a committee, it is a vote of the Senate that is so non-spectacular that most Americans back home aren't even paying attention to it. There's wide agreement. Sometimes they even get unanimous consent.

In this case, it's not clear whether or not Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, given the fact he also views the lower courts as a powerful tool. Think about that abortion case right now.

HARLOW: Yes.

FOX: It is a big question, whether or not he's going to willingly allow this to move forward. Democrats would need 60 votes in the Senate --

HARLOW: Yes.

FOX: -- If this goes to a vote.

HARLOW: Well, that's so fascinating. And McConnell has been so effective for his party in getting so many of these federal judges confirmed. And now with this abortion case, we see the power, right, of them playing out.

Lauren, thank you very much.

In the next hour, we'll be joined by California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, who, as we said, has called for Feinstein to resign.

LEMON: That's going to be a tough one to do. We'll watch that when. We'll look forward to Ro Khanna.

Meantime, former President Trump back in a new -- in New York for a deposition as he faces yet another legal battle. The question is, will he cooperate?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:16:30]

LEMON: Another very big story unfolding this morning. Jury selection begins in Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation case against FOX.

Now, the trial is still moving forward, despite the judge sanctioning FOX for withholding evidence and his plans to appoint a special master to investigate whether the right-wing network lied to the court.

FOX has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

In a pre-trial hearing yesterday, Dominion also played previously unaired audio of FOX host Maria Bartiromo and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, discussing whether Dominion had ties to top Democrats, which is a claim the network's guests made in 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS HOST (via phone): I'm going to be asking you for as much evidence as you can tell us about these lawsuits. Whatever you can tell us in terms of evidence would be really helpful. OK great.

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP (via phone): I can tell you exactly what we have.

BARTIROMO (via phone): Perfect and what about this software, this Dominion software?

GIULIANI (via phone): That -- that's a little harder.

BARTIROMO (via phone): Seems troubling.

GIULIANI (via phone): It's being -- it's being analyzed right now. I mean, there are a couple of races that have been reversed. Because the Democrat was triple counted, two already in Michigan. Now whether that applies for the whole state or not, I can't tell you yet.

BARTIROMO: This Dominion software, does tough for Nancy Pelosi have an interest in it?

GIULIANI (via phone): Yes, I've read that. I can't prove that.

BARTIROMO: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: OK. So a lot of allegations there. And there you see our Marshal Cohen. He is in -- in Wilmington, Delaware this morning, following this case.

Good morning, Marshall. What else did you take away from -- from court yesterday?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of drama in court yesterday, Don. Good morning.

I was in the courthouse right behind us when they played that tape that you just played. And when the judge heard it, he said it was extremely relevant to this case, and he wanted to know why FOX had only turned it over to Dominion last week.

This case has been going on since 2021, but Dominion says it only got this material last week.

The judge has decided to appoint a special master to investigate FOX to figure out, No. 1, if they intentionally withheld this tape and other tapes; and No. 2, if there's anything else out there that FOX needs to turn over to Dominion as part of the discovery process.

A pretty big development on the brink of trial.

And I do want to point out that FOX says that they've done nothing wrong. FOX said that they turned over this tape and related tapes as soon as they learned about it in a related lawsuit just a few weeks ago.

But clearly, with this trial commencing as we speak, they're already in some hot water.

LEMON: Yes. There's so many twists and turns in this case. I mean, we shouldn't underplay the fact that the judge sanctioned them for withholding evidence. That is huge. That's how people win lawsuits.

And there's also jury selection happening just hours away. What is today going to look like?

COHEN: It's going to be a long day. Three hundred Delaware residents have been summoned to this courthouse. They're there to do their duty, their civic duty for jury service.

They need to whittle that down to 12 jurors, 12 alternates that can be fair and impartial, give FOX a fair case, give Dominion a fair case. That's going to happen today and tomorrow. If everything goes as planned, opening statements should begin on Monday.

[06:20:06]

LEMON: All right. Marshall Cohen, Wilmington, Delaware, following the Dominion Voting System case against FOX News. Appreciate that.

A little bit later on, we'll be joined by "Vanity Fair" special correspondent Gabe Sherman on his new piece about Rupert Murdoch and the real-life succession battle among his kids.

HARLOW: That is a fascinating read, by the way.

This morning, Donald Trump is back in New York for a deposition in a civil lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James. This alleges that Trump was involved in a decade-long scheme to defraud lenders with false financial statements. His children and the Trump Organization are also listed as co-defendants.

The former president invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times in a previous deposition in this case. You'll remember that from August.

Kara Scannell is on top of it, live outside the New York A.G.'s office.

So Trump is expected to attend the proceedings today. What's going to happen here?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, that's the big question. Will the former president answer questions this time? Or will he continue to assert his Fifth Amendment right against incrimination? Or does he do a combination of both?

I mean, when we were here back in August, the attorney general's office was still investigating the Trump Organization, and there was an active Manhattan district attorney criminal investigation also ongoing at that time.

Since then, they filed that lawsuit, the $250 million lawsuit. And so the Trump team has now been able to see what all the allegations are against him.

They also had a first look at all the questions that the A.G. wanted to ask him. Those 400 questions that he didn't answer.

So now they're back again today at the request of the New York attorney general's office, and the president and his legal team have to make this decision of will he answer questions, some questions, or no questions?

And one of the calculations here could be in a civil lawsuit, if you don't answer questions, the jury can hold that against you. So it would be essentially saying, you know, a non-answer is -- is a bad answer for the defendant. So that could be part of the calculus here of why he could come in and answer questions this time.

You know, though, however, it is still a gamble, because the Manhattan district attorney, which did announce criminal charges against the former president related to the hush-money payments only just a few weeks ago, they're still conducting an investigation into the accuracy of these financial statements. So it certainly is not without risk.

But a big question will be what happens today, and we're waiting here to see how this will unfold, Poppy.

HARLOW: That's so interesting that the jury can hold a non-answer, taking the Fifth, against him in a civil case.

Before you go, Kara, let's talk about what Trump has done, filing a lawsuit, a new lawsuit, $500 million lawsuit against his former lawyer, Michael Cohen.

In reading about it this morning, the question is sort of can Trump use this as a way to silence Cohen so he wouldn't testify?

SCANNELL: Well, that's that's the angle that Michael Cohen is saying in his response. His attorney is saying that this is a tactic by Trump to try to silence Cohen, to try to harass and intimidate him and to send a message to other potential witnesses who are cooperating in any of the investigations against Trump.

I mean, this is particular to this long relationship that Trump and Cohen have had, where Cohen, of course, worked for him, was his personal attorney, was an employee of the Trump Organization.

And the essence of this suit is Trump is saying that he violated agreements, confidentiality agreements, attorney agreements, by spreading both confidential information in the books, podcasts and television interviews Cohen has given but also misinformation.

This will all play out in court in Florida once it starts moving through the system, Poppy.

HARLOW: Kara, thank you on both those fronts very much.

Also tonight on CNN primetime, Kaitlan will sit down for a one-on-one with Michael Cohen. You can watch that only on CNN, 9 p.m. Eastern.

LEMON: What we're learning this morning about actor Jamie Foxx's condition after he was hospitalized overnight.

And a major South Florida airport forced to stop flights because of non-stop raining. We're going to take you live to those floodwaters. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:27:48]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twelve years doing these type flooding stories in South Florida. This is the worst I've ever seen. This is an unbelievable amount of rain. And it rained for a couple of days leading up to today's event. That left just nowhere for all this water that has fallen in the past four or five hours to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Yes. That is saying a lot: 12 years that reporter was saying from our affiliate down in South Florida, WSVN, where historic flooding is stranding travelers, is stalling cars, is breaching buildings. If you don't believe me, we're going to get there in the second.

Officials say it is a one in 50-year rainfall event as nearly a foot of rain fell in just hours.

Now, Fort Lauderdale's airport is completely shut down until at least noon today, and you can see this man being pulled from his car. It's outside the airport as rising floodwaters turned streets into rivers. Look at him. Look at the water there. Wow. Crazy.

Straight now to CNN's Carlos Suarez, live for us in Fort Lauderdale with more this morning. He is standing in a whole lot of water, as well. Carlos, good morning to you. I hope you're being safe. What is the latest where you are?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, good morning.

So a good part of Broward County is waking up this morning underwater.

We're in a neighborhood just North of Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, where as you can see behind me, the street here is flooded. Drivers, they are in some cases going the wrong way. They're going opposite traffic when they realized their cars will most likely not make it past all this water.

What you're taking a look at here is flooding that is the result of three days' worth of rain, as well as a full day of rain yesterday that really would not let up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUAREZ (voice-over): This is Fort Lauderdale. Heavy downpours and thunderstorms here and in many other parts of South Florida. Vehicles submerged. And this video shows a person swimming down a flooded street.

Weather forecasters are calling the rainfall in some areas of Broward County, a one in 50-year rainfall event. Some other places are seeing even more extreme rainfall, possibly up to 20 inches of rain. That would be at least a one in 200-year rainfall event.

[06:30:00]